Two huge construction firms that are helping to build about 54 miles of bullet train structures in the Central Valley are seeking an additional $300 million on their fixed-price contracts, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

The increases, if the state ultimately agrees to cover them, would further bloat the bill for what has been touted as the easiest and most predictable section of the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system.

The potential increases lend credence to the findings of a December risk assessment by the Federal Railroad Administration that costs for building the full 118 miles of work in the Central Valley could jump by 50%, or $3.6 billion, above current estimates.

The increases are described in letters from Tutor Perini Corp. and Dragados USA. The firms make the case that their contracts do not cover the full scope of the work and that the state’s management of the project is causing delays.

A representative for the state rail authority said the agency has not agreed to pay the additional costs to the companies and that the letters do not represent formal claims. It has also sharply disputed the federal estimates, saying the higher projected costs were part of a routine risk assessment of the project and that they do not account for efforts to avoid them.

The potential cost increases come during a difficult political juncture.

Newly empowered Central Valley Republican members of the U.S. House last month asked the Trump administration to conduct a full blown audit of the project’s finances and have successfully held up a related federal grant until they get what they want.

I won’t find myself in the impossible position of having proceeded with major work without agreement.— Ron Tutor, chief executive of Tutor Perini Corp. construction firm

Separately, the state is facing two key lawsuits that could puncture the project’s funding. One disputes its plan to tap bond funds. The second seeks to block funding from the state’s carbon auctions.

The Tutor letter, which lists $228 million in additional costs, reveals friction between the company and the rail authority.

“I won’t find myself in the impossible position of having proceeded with major work without agreement,” the company’s chief executive, Ron Tutor, wrote in the Sept. 26 letter addressed to rail authority CEO Jeff Morales. “It is my opinion that none of these should be controversial ... the inability of your job site to do anything to resolve changes on a timely basis is obvious.”

Tutor went on to say that the managers of the project were “trying to figure out ways not to pay us.”

The letter lays out seven separate cost issues, though it does not detail or justify them. The largest item involves the construction of intrusion barriers, which would separate existing Union Pacific and BNSF freight tracks from the future high-speed rail tracks.

Tutor, based in Sylmar, also lists $61.6 million in cost increases for several miles of work in Madera, on a section that was originally supposed to cost $154 million.

Separately Dragado, a Spain-based firm that is teamed with U.S.-based Flatiron, said in an Aug. 23 letter that delays in obtaining land for construction along the rail route could end up costing $100 million to $110 million, though it could accelerate its pace and cut the increase to $60 million to $65 million.

The Times obtained the letters under a public records act request after learning about them from officials close to the project.

In an accompanying letter to The Times, the rail authority asserted that “contractors routinely propose cost increases or time extension … although not all such proposals result in any payment or time extension.”

It went on to say the letters by themselves are not a basis for increasing the cost of the project and that the authority would have to first determine if the claims have any merit — indicating that the issues have not been resolved.

In an interview, Ron Tutor said his costs are not increasing, but rather all the $228 million outlined in his letter are “owner-initiated change orders.”

“It is their option whether they do the work,” he said, adding that some of the changes would be necessary for a functional system and others are optional. The biggest item, involving barriers, resulted from discussions with Union Pacific Railroad, he said.

“That is between them and Union Pacific,” he said. “We just quoted them a price.”

In a statement, Union Pacific said the barriers are critical for safety.

“The barrier requirement between freight and proposed high-speed rail tracks was agreed to and included in a 2014 agreement between Union Pacific and the California High Speed Rail Authority,” the company said. “The barrier type was determined through a study led by [the rail authority]. The barriers will reduce the possibility that a derailment on either party's tracks could interfere with safe operations on the other party's tracks.”

The project has fallen far behind schedule, largely because the state has been slow in acquiring land. The federal risk analysis projected that 118 miles of Central Valley track from Madera to Shafter will not be completed until 2024, seven years behind schedule.

Such delays almost always cause increases in cost, because employee salaries, equipment charges and material costs drag on over a longer period of time.

The rail authority previously agreed to pay Tutor about $50 million to cover an earlier claim that the firm’s progress was delayed because the state was slow to buy the property on which it was contracted to build. It added another $15 million for the company to accelerate construction activity in a bid to make up time.

The rail authority warned the Legislature in a report last month that costs associated with both land acquisition and intrusion barriers are “very high” risks with significant impacts to the project.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.